Escaping Nightmares
by Meg Rider
Summary: While the police are trying to find out exactly what happened that night at The Smith House, the survivors do their best to move on and forget. But, Clayton Smith doesn't want any loose ends and he's determined to find each one of them and bring them to Maleficent so she can finish what she started. The sequel to "the girl in the staircase". Please read the original first.
1. Chapter 1

Officer Odette and her partner, Derek, were the first ones on the scene. They entered The Smith House quietly and split up. Odette made her way upstairs and Derek took the basement. The emergency call came from a young man who said two girls- Ariel and Esmeralda- had gone on a killing spree. Most of the students and staff hadn't survived.

Odette stepped carefully, holding her gun out in front of her with her flashlight poised above it. The house was eerily silent and almost completely dark. She came to the first hallway and shone her light down it. The hallway was empty, no sign of anyone or any struggle. Odette continued up the stairs. She shone her flashlight down the next hallway and came to an abrupt stop. Butchered bodies of kids barely in their twenties were scattered all over the hallway. Bloody smears and hand prints decorated the walls. It was a heartbreaking sight, but Odette forced herself to stay composed.

She cradled her flashlight against the crook of her neck and spoke into the walkie talkie on her shoulder. "This is Officer Odette requesting back up at The Smith House."

"Ten-four," was the response back.

"No." The voice was bare audible, but Odette was sure she heard it. She took hold of her flashlight again and held it out in front of her. At the end of the hallway Odette could make out a shadow moving.

"Camelot P.D.!" Odette called out. The person didn't respond. Odette carefully walked down the hall. As she approached the figure she could see it was a woman. She was diligently scrubbing blood off the wall and muttering to herself. "Stop!" Odette demanded. "You are tampering with a crime scene."

The woman turned to look at Odette. "I have to clean up the evidence and hide the bodies or they'll kill me, too."

"Who will kill you? Ariel and Esmeralda?"

The woman ignored Odette and went back to cleaning the wall. Odette frowned and called into her walkie talkie, "Derek, I have a woman up on the third floor cleaning up evidence and not cooperating."

"On my way," Derek replied.

Odette put her gun in her holster and slowly pulled out her handcuffs. The woman didn't seem to notice. Odette quickly grabbed her arm, but before she could get the cuffs on her, the woman snarled at her and tackled her to the ground. The two women struggled against each other until Derek finally arrived and pulled the woman off Odette.

Odette immediately handcuffed the woman's arms behind her back. "You are under arrest for tampering with a crime scene. Everything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law."

The woman replied by hissing at her. A few minutes later, back up arrived at the house. Odette and Derek took the woman to the station for questioning. Odette took her into the interrogation room while Derek and the chief of police, Dymas, watched and listened from behind the two-way mirror.

"What is your name?" Odette asked the woman.

"Anita Radcliffe."

"Were you a member of the staff at The Smith House?"

Anita stared at her for a moment, but then said, "Yes. I was the librarian."

Odette nodded. "Can you tell me what happened tonight?"

Anita looked around uneasily as if she thought someone was going to jump out at her. "I don't know really know _exactly _what happened. Two of the students just starting killing everybody. I hid in the library. Several of the students escaped out of the library window, including one of the killers, Ariel."

Odette arched her eyebrow at her. "You're sure?"

"Yes. Last I saw her she was with a couple of the other students, running towards the woods."

"What about Esmeralda? What happened to her?"

"I don't know. I never saw her."

Odette glanced over at the mirror, then looked back at Anita. "Ms. Radcliffe, can you tell me what the two suspects, Ariel and Esmeralda, look like?"

Anita nodded. "Esmeralda has thick black hair, tan skin, turquoise eyes. I think she was around twenty-years-old. Ariel was younger. Red hair, pale skin, big blue eyes."

"Did any of the other staff survive?" Odette asked, as she scribbled down the descriptions Anita had given her.

"I... I can't say."

Odette glanced up at her. "Why not?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know if anyone else survived or you don't know why you can't tell me?"

Anita nervously bit her lip. "Both."

"Ms. Radcliffe, you do know that withholding information is against the law, correct?" Odette asked. Anita's eyes glazed over and the color from her face drained. She became so pale, almost gray, and started sweating. "Ms. Radcliffe?"

Anita's body suddenly started to violently convulse and she vomited blood down the front of her shirt. The door burst open and Derek rushed to Anita's side. Anita continued to throw up blood all over herself and Derek. But then, she abruptly stopped and fell over, crashing to the floor.

Derek pressed two fingers against her neck. "She's dead. What happened?"

"I don't know," Odette replied.

**:::X:::X:::X:::**

Several hours later, Odette sat at her desk, sipping luke-warm coffee and going over the information for The Smith House case. Derek sat at the desk in front of her, scanning the autopsy for Anita Radcliffe.

"The coroner has no idea what killed her," Derek told Odette. "They can't find anything unusual..." his voice trailed off as he continued reading.

"Twelve kids are dead," Odette muttered to herself. "Fourteen are missing, including both suspects. But, what I don't understand is who are these kids?"

Derek set down the coroner's report. "What do you mean?"

"There is no trace of any of them in ours, or any, system. No record of any of them anywhere," Odette paused and looked up at Derek. "It's like none of them ever existed outside of The Smith House."


	2. Chapter 2

Odette stared at the large screen on the wall as it scanned for Ariel in the database. It had been looking for a match for the last four hours and still nothing.

"Why can't we find anything?" Odette demanded, turning away from the screen to face her partner.

Derek was sitting beside the desk, leaning back in the chair, with his feet propped up on the front corner of the desk. He was holding a coffee mug and studying the screen as well. "We're just missing something," he said finally. "They're out there somewhere."

Odette ran a hand through her blonde hair. "They," she repeated. "I almost forgot about the missing students. We don't even know if they're alive. Ariel got away and could very well have killed them."

Derek leaned forward, setting his mug on the desk next to two stacks of folders. One stack was the files for the victims, the other for the missing students. "There's a lot we don't know," he said. "We really haven't gotten anywhere. Our only witness is dead... and we don't know what killed her. We can't find any information on the killers, the missing students or the victims. The only information we have is the school records we found and we don't even know how accurate they are."

Odette sighed and picked up the folder on top of the victims' pile. It was for Charlotte. Odette couldn't help feeling sad for the young blonde girl. She looked like the kind of girl who had been a cheerleader, entered in pageants and ran for prom queen. "The files don't give much information."

Derek let out a frustrated groan as he leaned back in the chair. "They don't give any information except their first name. No last name, no age, no address; nothing. The only way we even know these kids exist is that they're bodies are in our coroner's office."

"Well, what about the school? Were you able to find anything out about The Smith House?" Odette asked.

Derek cocked an eyebrow at his partner. "What do you think?"

"Another dead end?" Odette guessed. Derek nodded. "How is that possible? How is any of this possible? How can we have solid proof that these kids and the school exist, and at the same time have absolutely no record of either?"

"I don't know," Derek admitted. The phone on the desk rang. Derek reached over and hit the speaker button. "Tzipporah, _please _tells us you found something."

"They found Esmeralda's body," the coroner told them.

"We're on our way down," Odette told her before hanging up.

Odette and Derek immediately headed to the elevator and took it down to the basement. The coroner and the Chief, Dymas, were standing next to a table. Tzipporah was in her early thirties, with tan skin and thick black hair. Rarely did anyone see her without her lab coat on. Chief Dymas was an older man with white hair and a white beard. On the table was the body of a girl who couldn't have been much younger than Odette.

"They found her in a river that runs through the woods behind The Smith House," Dymas told them.

"Somebody killed her?" Derek asked.

Tzipporah nodded. "The bruises on her neck and the water in her lungs tells us that someone held her head under the water by her throat until she drowned. There was some skin under her fingernails from where she clawed at her attacker. We're running the DNA now, but so far we haven't had any matches."

Odette thought about the scans they were running on Ariel and the missing students. "Something tells me we're not going to find any matches."

"What do you mean?" Dymas asked.

"We've been running scans on Ariel, the missing students and the victims for the last several hours and so far we haven't found a single match to any of them."

"We can't find any information on anyone from The Smith House," Derek elaborated. "No last names, addresses, family members, nothing at all."

Dymas frowned and turned to Tzipporah. "Run DNA tests on all the victims."

"Yes, sir," Tzipporah replied.

**:::X:::X:::X:::**

Odette and Derek spent the entire day at the office. Ten hours and three pots of coffee later, they finally heard back from Tzipporah.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news," Tzipporah told them from the speaker phone on Derek's desk. "We weren't able to find any DNA matches."

"Can't say we're surprised," Derek muttered.

"Tzipporah, were you able to find out what killed Anita Radcliffe?" Odette asked.

"Not yet."

"Keep us updated if you learn anything at all," Derek told her.

"You know I will." A second later Tzipporah was off the phone.

"Either Ariel is more cunning than we imagined, or this is bigger than we thought," Dymas said, approaching their desks.

Derek tossed his pen on his desk and leaned back in his chair. "I don't know what we're over-looking. There has to be a clue in here somewhere."

"What about..." Odette paused to check her notes "...Maleficent and Jafar? The boy who placed the call that night mentioned that they were the principal and vice principal of the school. Has anyone found out anything about them?"

"They definitely weren't at the school when we got there," Derek said.

"They could be dead, too," Odette mumbled. "Or missing like those students. I'll see what I can find out."

"I want the two of you to continue doing research and finding out as much as you can," Dymas told them. "I'm going to put Joseph Korso and Cale Tucker from homicide on the case as well for the field work."

"Yes, sir," Odette and Derek said in unison.

"The longer it takes to solve this, the further away Ariel gets," Dymas continued. "As of right now she is our prime suspect. If we find her, we might just be able to figure out the rest of this."


	3. Chapter 3

**2 MONTHS LATER... **

Ariel crept quietly across the lawn, careful to stay in the shadows. As she approached the house she saw a ripped piece of yellow tape hanging from the door frame. It flapped in the light summer breeze for a moment before getting caught on a jagged piece of wood on the frame. Ariel paused outside the back door and glanced behind her. Eric was only a foot away, looking up at the house. Like her, he was dressed all in black; including lack gloves.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Ariel whispered.

Eric nodded. He walked passed her and knelt down in front of the door. He pulled out a lock-pick kit from his jacket pocket and began working on the lock while Ariel kept watch. When she heard Eric opened the door, she turned around and made her way inside. Eric put his kit back in his pocket and closed the door behind him. Instantly the house became much darker. There was a street light in front of the house casting a flickering light into the living room down the hall, but that was the only light they could see.

"Now will you tell me why we're here?" Eric asked.

Ariel was running her fingers over the kitchen table, lost in thought, and almost didn't hear Eric. She looked up at him. "This is my home."

"Your..." Eric let his voice trail off as he looked around. "But, why are we here?"

Ariel stepped into the hallway and removed a frame picture of her and her sisters from the wall. She held it up so Eric could see it. "They never found out who actually killed my family. They just assumed it was me and, as far as I know, they never investigated it further. I have to find out who those men were and clear my name."

"Why now? This happened almost a year ago."

"The police have been looking for me since that night at The Smith House. I didn't think it was safe to return here until now." She hung the picture back on the wall.

"How are you going to do this, Ariel? The police are still looking for you, so you can't go to them for help. And do you even know anything about investing a murder?" Eric asked.

"No," Ariel admitted. "But, I can't let those men get away with this."

"I understand that. And I'll help you in anyway I can. But, remember: even if you clear your name of the murders of your family, you still killed those people in The Smith House."

"But, I didn't... They brainwashed me."

"Unless you can prove that, they're just going to think you're crazy." Eric put his arm around Ariel's shoulders. "They'll say you're criminally insane and lock you up in some place worse than The Smith House. I don't want that to happen to you."

Ariel stared at the photos of her family on the wall. "Then I'll get proof."

**:::X:::X:::X:::**

Meg never thought she'd be grateful to Maleficent for anything. But, as she stared at the negative pregnancy test, she found herself briefly thanking Maleficent. If she and that doctor hadn't sterilized her, she would have certainly gotten pregnant when Minister Frollo raped her.

Meg heard her phone ringing in her bedroom. She tossed the pregnancy test into the garbage can and walked into her room. Before answering, she glanced at the clock. It was a little after two in the morning. After leaving The Smith House, Mag had many nights of nightmares until she eventually developed insomnia. Now when any of the other survivors can't sleep they call her or come to her apartment, just looking for someone they can turn to. Though, they knew it would be better for them to split up, they all felt safer staying close together so everyone moved within just a couple blocks from each other.

Meg picked up the cordless landline. "Hello?"

"Oh, Meg, I'm so glad you answered." Rapunzel's frantic voice came from the other end.

"What's wrong?" Meg asked.

"Is Flynn there?"

Meg frowned. Shortly after arriving in town, Rapunzel stumbled into a bar one night looking for refuge from the rain and found Flynn drinking away all of his money. The bartender overheard them talking about being low on money and offered her a job and let her stay in the apartment above the bar for cheap. Feeling bad for Flynn, she let him stay with her. But, he continued to drink every night and got money by stealing and hustling pool. Some nights when he got really drunk and was too ashamed to face Rapunzel, he'd walk over to Meg's apartment and crash on her couch. All of the survivors had a key to her apartment and sometimes she didn't hear them come in. Like tonight. If Flynn was in her apartment, she didn't know.

"Let me check," Meg told Rapunzel. She walked out into the living room and found Flynn passed out on the floor. "Yeah, he's here."

"Oh, thank God," Rapunzel breathed. "I just got off work and I'm too tired to walk over there tonight. Can you please keep an eye on him?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, Meg." Rapunzel hung up.

Meg hit the _end _button and set the phone on the coffee table. She thought back to when she first met Rapunzel. Then Rapunzel had been so positive and upbeat, but now she just sounded tired all the time. Meg hated Maleficent for breaking Rapunzel like that.

She grabbed the blanket off the couch and draped it over Flynn. He stirred slightly, but didn't wake up. Flynn was also different now. Before he had been friendly and outgoing, and now he was just a drunken mess.

As Meg stood over her friend, she vowed to find Maleficent and make her pay for what she did to them.


End file.
